so why don't you have religion?

[Stanton Moore]

The simpler the religion, the less opportunity for flaw

This is what makes Jesus so compelling and attractive, even to non-Christians

"Treat others as you would wish to be treated"

It is so simple and easy to live by. You don't even need pages and pages of nonsense and hypocrisy

Look for ideas that you can accept and believe in

Yes. Jesu was a hippy. Hippies are good, despite what republicans say.

 

[Blank]

I do not believe in religion for a myriad of religions:

1. Once I was told Santa was not real, I began to extrapolate and I figured God was not real by extension.
2. I could not accept the notion that God was "just there" for all eternity--what was the origin of God?
3. Christianity specifically is very poor about answering why there is evil in the world and the necessity of it. I came to understand religion as a way for people to cope with death or with reality and the horrible depression it brings. I extrapolated this to extend to most, if not all religions.
4. I have yet to encounter a religion that is both not contradictory or self-evidently true in its preaching.
5. I have only met an extremely small amount of people who are both religious and open-minded or who don't try to fit the world into their religious paradigm. I think it should work the other way around.
6. If there were/is a god, then I would assume that it holds no interest in humanity and that it is the personal savior of none. Religion would be irrelevant to such a being and to us by extension.


If a god does exist and is truly independent of our timeline, then the best analogy I can assume is that reality is like a simulation and that a god would be a programmer. Essentially, a programmer would be omnipotent and omniscient, but could a programmer deal with 7+ billion individuals on earth, let alone any other possible beings in the universe? It's possible, I suppose, but extremely unlikely. It would be like us playing The Sims, but instead of being in charge of one family or individual, it would be taking care of an entire simulated world.

 

[Mole]

Did Victor do his whole Religion = Fascism thing again?

Sometimes I think if I hear that often enough I'm going to start and become interested in fascism.

Perhaps you should for it was right wing catholics, backed by the Vatican, who formed the backbone of Fascism in Europe before WW II.

Catholics have not been able to apologise enough for this, but perhaps you would like to make a start.

 

[Coriolis]

Books and writing are one of the surer ways of transmitting knowledge and learning between generations and preserving it against corruption or degeneration.

We live in the age which suggests that coming up with ideas all by yourself and eschewing the past is a great idea, no problem with it, wont ever be as bad as what has gone by already right? Wrong. Its only a result that this principle, while popular, hasnt made serious inroads into social structures or institutions that there's not complete chaos already.

Although I'm sure that its resulted in a lot of criminality which could have been avoided if the moral relativism which reigns didnt.

Written language is indeed one of the surer ways of transmitting knowledge, but the fidelity of the method is no substitute for the veracity or utility of the knowledge transmitted. In fact, the fidelity of the method can lead the reader to overvalue the content, or to consider it (sometimes literally) engraved in stone, refusing to update or reinterpret it as the years progress. This is ossification and willful ignorance.

By comparision, The Druids seemed to have a reasonably faithful and comrehensive oral tradition. I think the oral tradition would have permitted more flexibility over the years, while preserving the original messages. In any case, I derive far more spiritual inspiration from the works of God than the works of men.

The alternative to letting a book rule your life is not "coming up with ideas all by yourself and eschewing the past". There is far more to the past than the bible, and far more people to learn from and with than can be found in mainstream churches. Better to remain critically open to knowledge and inspiration wherever it is found, and to seek especially the common threads in our diverse human faiths. This will give us the best glimpse of the divine, though all the noise of our doctrines and sermons and books.

Finally, [MENTION=6508]Blank[/MENTION]: God is real, just like Santa.

 

[Blank]

[MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION]

Sure. If by just like Santa you mean existing only in the minds of individuals.

 

[Coriolis]

[MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION]

Sure. If by just like Santa you mean existing only in the minds of individuals.

Just like beauty, humor, and love.

 

[Lily flower]

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed in following high moral standards, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that there was no one to answer to for their behavior?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" has brought more bad than good to the world.

 

[crayons]

Religion is just too much for me to track, it's much easier to just not believe in special rituals, unseen mystical religion-based places nor higher powers. I'm much happier just following my own little moral code and doing what I think is best and hurts others the least. I can understand why some want more structure in their lives and something to believe in, but that's just not for me.

Not to mention I love to poke at things with a stick, if you poke religion with a stick people get angry on you.

 

[Blank]

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed in following high moral standards, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that there was no one to answer to for their behavior?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" has brought more bad than good to the world.

Well, I think I may have a more enjoyable conversation with the latter. In my experience I've found a higher proportion of people who believed in moral relativism to be more courteous and consistent than those professing a strong faith in God. But really, what does one's religious orientation have to do with anything? It'd be like asking if you'd prefer to be picked up by a homosexual or a heterosexual.

Besides, those who believe that no one is accountable for their behavior are just as dangerous as religious zealots, if you want to swing the pendulum on the other extreme to balance out your scenario.

So, would I prefer to get picked up by a sociopath or Shirley Phelps? I'd go with the sociopath.

 

[Lark]

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed in following high moral standards, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that there was no one to answer to for their behavior?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" has brought more bad than good to the world.

One of the few posts in this thread which isnt just depressing.

 

[tinker683]

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed in following high moral standards, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that there was no one to answer to for their behavior?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" has brought more bad than good to the world.

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed that you were going to hell for not believeing what they did or that you were unAmerican, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that thi was the only life we had so it would be in our best interest to make life worth living for ourselves and those around us?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" somehow makes a person inherently good or that morality is something only religious people can understand or know.

 

[ceecee]

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed in following high moral standards, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that there was no one to answer to for their behavior?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" has brought more bad than good to the world.

Um, as long as they could get me to civilization, I wouldn't even care or think about it. I had no idea that without religion, a person can't have morals. As far as religion bringing more bad than good, the list of horrific things that organized religion is responsible for or responsible for condoning is very convincing. If you were looking for a business to do a service for you, you would read reviews, see if they had ever been reported or sued, talk to people who have had experience with this company. That information would determine your confidence or lack of confidence and ultimately the decision to hire or not. Genocide, condoning genocide with silence, rape, murder, theft, child abuse and oppression and torture.....that's more than enough to keep me far away.

 

[Lark]

Um, as long as they could get me to civilization, I wouldn't even care or think about it. I had no idea that without religion, a person can't have morals. As far as religion bringing more bad than good, the list of horrific things that organized religion is responsible for or responsible for condoning is very convincing. If you were looking for a business to do a service for you, you would read reviews, see if they had ever been reported or sued, talk to people who have had experience with this company. That information would determine your confidence or lack of confidence and ultimately the decision to hire or not. Genocide, condoning genocide with silence, rape, murder, theft, child abuse and oppression and torture.....that's more than enough to keep me far away.

Are you sure about all that? I write reviews and I know how many problems there are with bias and validity, with something like religion, which for much of the time you're talking about was a vassel, unfortunately, for politics there is much, much more room for inaccuracy, error and outright propaganda.

The crimes of religion where often exaggerated from day one through schism and sectarianism, each seeking to draw support, motivate existing supporters and demonise their opposition, then with the ascendency of secularism and atheism those "facts" where regurgitated, added to and repeated with much more vehemence.

An honest assessment of religion would find that it fares reasonably well in comparison to modern political ideologies, where religion had healing, hospitality and beginnings of medicine modern political ideologies had the atrocities of Mengala (spelling) or his soviet equivalents, even in the US and Sweden after the war there were widespread experimentation upon ethnic minorities.

Religion is given a very unfair treatment in the folk memory, often because people have highly personal reasons and have projected upon religion something they dislike, often with good reason, perhaps they've found people who represent well their worst suspiscions and decide that their generalisations are in fact true.

I dont actually proselytise or preach or feel any need to evangelise when it comes to religion, not at all, I dont talk about religion much in person because there is such variance, from people who give it too much credit, to those who believe its entirely discredited. It disappoints me when I hear old hackneyed myths peddled from people I otherwise respect though.

 

[ceecee]

Are you sure about all that? I write reviews and I know how many problems there are with bias and validity, with something like religion, which for much of the time you're talking about was a vassel, unfortunately, for politics there is much, much more room for inaccuracy, error and outright propaganda.

The crimes of religion where often exaggerated from day one through schism and sectarianism, each seeking to draw support, motivate existing supporters and demonise their opposition, then with the ascendency of secularism and atheism those "facts" where regurgitated, added to and repeated with much more vehemence.

An honest assessment of religion would find that it fares reasonably well in comparison to modern political ideologies, where religion had healing, hospitality and beginnings of medicine modern political ideologies had the atrocities of Mengala (spelling) or his soviet equivalents, even in the US and Sweden after the war there were widespread experimentation upon ethnic minorities.

Religion is given a very unfair treatment in the folk memory, often because people have highly personal reasons and have projected upon religion something they dislike, often with good reason, perhaps they've found people who represent well their worst suspiscions and decide that their generalisations are in fact true.

I dont actually proselytise or preach or feel any need to evangelise when it comes to religion, not at all, I dont talk about religion much in person because there is such variance, from people who give it too much credit, to those who believe its entirely discredited. It disappoints me when I hear old hackneyed myths peddled from people I otherwise respect though.

I'm curious what you disagree with or consider to be a myth. The Inquisition wasn't real? The Albigensian Crusade wasn't real? Child abuse and rape never occurred? I'm not singling out The Roman Catholic church. If I was I would simply have found another religion. I include all organized religion and since one is no less horrific than the other they all get the same treatment from me. I really have more of a problem with a person who thinks you can't have high moral standards without religion. That's ridiculous and offensive.

 

[Lark]

I'm curious what you disagree with or consider to be a myth. The Inquisition wasn't real? The Albigensian Crusade wasn't real? Child abuse and rape never occurred? I'm not singling out The Roman Catholic church. If I was I would simply have found another religion. I include all organized religion and since one is no less horrific than the other they all get the same treatment from me. I really have more of a problem with a person who thinks you can't have high moral standards without religion. That's ridiculous and offensive.

Perhaps it is possible to have morals without religion, I'm not going to speculate on that.

The inquisition did indeed exist and its crimes where exaggerated, there's a consensus on that now among academic historians and the religious authorities descended from the earlier inquisitorial days have apologised for its excesses. Did you know that the inquisitions power and particularly its deployment of torture paled in comparison with the local or princely powers in most of the areas in which it operated? Did you know that there were many people who operated under its auspices without really being authorised to do so? The true picture is very different from the vague, wicked, wicked people story which is told and retold by religions detractors and opponents.

The same can be said for any of the other instances you mention, if you want to talk about clerical abuse and child abuse, that did happen, often with the collusion of so called "respectable society" and the secular/public authorities, thankfully the status of women and children has been gradually changing and so have social attitudes condoning that sort of thing but those are not simple religious attitudes among religions people and truly religious people would be just as conscientious as any other hater of that kind of thing.

For every instance of crimes by religious I could cite a dozen examples to the contrary, I'm from a religious tradition which still honours saints, scholars and martyrs, a lot of them as recently as the second war and the struggles of regular people against capitalism, communism, nazism, fascism and slavery. I'm pretty sure that's going to be a pointless exercise but its good to know your position and just how entrenched it is. Dont hate while you're creating these morals from scratch. Good luck.

 

[sleepy]

If you were stranded on a road in the middle of nowhere and someone stopped to pick you up, would you prefer that person had a strong faith in God and believed in following high moral standards, or would you prefer that person believed that God was a myth, that morals were all relative and that there was no one to answer to for their behavior?

I ask this question because I am always amazed that people think that "religion" has brought more bad than good to the world.

It will depend how literal the person reads the bible. And it would depend how I was perceived.


A command of Moses:

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)

 

[Lark]

It will depend how literal the person reads the bible. And it would depend how I was perceived.


A command of Moses:

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)

And yet to many modern mindsets "Do not allow a religious to live" makes more sense.

I can understand how this advice from Moses would have made sense, if you're living in a time of superstitious human sacrifices, including infanticide, and you're advising your followers that its the sort of thing you would like to repress, that's before you get into the question of whether or not you believe in any supernatural dimension to life at all.

The idea that you shouldnt suffer a witch to live provoking horror as it does reflects just how well witchcraft and old religions have fared during their post-modern rehabilitation but they have at least as superstitious a quality as religion, a great deal more than what I would describe as enlightened religion, and for some of their history they where insanely violent and bloody.

The wicker man wasnt invented for the movie of the same name, the actual sacrifical rite was much more terrifying than the movie depicts, ie a single male virgin getting burnt to death, and the bloody rites of cornish and irish druids and celts were supposed to have been terrible enough to deter Roman invasion and occupation beyond the land of the britons (england), the saying of "beyond the pale" is supposed to refer to this.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Up to this point, I've seen insufficient evidence of physical/meta-physical premises behind theism and spiritualism, and I have seen evidence that poses a challenge to such a thing. With that, I couldn't believe if I wanted to. But I don't really want to anyway, because I don't get the sense that it would do me any particular good, so why go through the trouble?

Now, strictly from the social perspective, I don't get involved in religion because there's nothing a religious based community can do that a non-religious community can't, and I'd rather find a community not based on stuff I don't believe in and fond of weird rules like not allowing gay marriage.

I don't see religion as utilitarian, I see it as vestigial.

 

[Qlip]

I understand why people aren't religious, and I get it, but a lot of these answers are near the same as saying, "I don't like hamburgers because they have ketchup on them, and I'm allergic to the seasame seeds all stuck on top of the bun."

 

[Lark]

I understand why people aren't religious, and I get it, but a lot of these answers are near the same as saying, "I don't like hamburgers because they have ketchup on them, and I'm allergic to the seasame seeds all stuck on top of the bun."

True that.

It seems some how to be a pretty superficial or shallow response to something which is more significant, although that could be a personal thing I guess I've read enough to know that its not unique to me and used to be much more pervasive a phenomenon than this thread alone would make it appear to be.

Using the burger analogy, in a way or taking it further, its a little like talking to someone who's happily house bound obesce about the joys of running in all weathers or a diet which just satiates (spelling) an appetite and nothing more, its so far removed from their normal, everyday, lived reality as to make no sense really, not even as an aspiration.

Magic, I kind of see what you're talking about because despite never having fully abandoned my theist beliefs and only experiencing one crisis of the same once (which I understand now as a crisis of faith in some of the proofs of God rather than my faith both in and in the existence of God) that is a view I could have entertained when I was younger and less concerned or compelled by that side of life. What I would say is that there's more strange and unbelieveable or beyond belief stuff in quantum physics or the outer reaches of science, to me, than there appears in religion.